Evaluando la confianza institucional en Chile: Una mirada desde los resultados LAPOP

chile is comparatively placed in a very favorable position in terms of its recent experience with democracy, which resumed eighteen-years ago after an unprecedented experience with authoritarianism (freedom house, polity iv). however, while not unique to this case, citizen's low levels of confidence in democratic institutions as well as declining electoral participation rates, increasing blank and invalid voting, and youngsters alienation from democratic elections yield significant questions regarding the consolidation of the country's currently democratic political regime. drawing on the lapop 2006 and 2008 surveys, this article explores the levels and determinants of different (empirically defined) types of institutional trust found among the chilean citizenry. the paper's central finding is that citizen's positive perceptions on the current government's efforts to solve salient problems correlate positively with their levels of trust in democratic institutions. in addition, political identification variables (identifications with the concertación and the alianza, reported electoral participation, satisfaction with democracy) and socio-demographic factors also appear to be significantly correlated to levels of institutional trust.